Morning journal and courier., 1887-04-25
The Social Dangers Threatened by
Feminine Fencing.
tCharles Dudley Warner in Harpsr's Magazine

The Social Dangers Threatened by
Feminine Fencing.
| iCharles Dudley Warner in Harpsrs Magazine
for May.l
10 armsl Our young ladies have taken to
| fencing-that is the young ladies who keep
| up with the foreign fashions and know what
| the Queen of Naples and other dashing So
cial guerillas are doing. Women have SO
| long been fenced in-we seek in vain another
expression for their subjection-that we who
favor both the development and the emanci-
patton OF woman hail with delight this mar
| tial movement. We hear as vet of no stu
| deuts' duels at Smiths or Wellesley OF Vas
| sar, but they will be in order when these ex-
| cellent colleges become universities and have
club life and a resident population in the
full swing of student independence. Fem
cling Is a splendid exercise; it develops the
chest, hardens the muscles, invigorates the
back-and the back is said to be the one
weak element in our otherwise perfect civili-
zation-trains the eve and by raising physi-
cal confidence increases the moral courage.
We have heard great deal about armaments
lately, and Notifications and the necessity of
coast defence. But here are our defenders or
the mothers of them; for when our women
take the sword the next generation is certain
to be nation of soldiers. We do not make
light of this movement. 1t has a profound
significance. We do not take it to be with
women passing fashion like crouuet or
lawn-tenis, or the constructions on the back
In Imitation of the burden of sin of Chris
tlan. Everybody knows by this time that
the ballot is the one thing is life that makes
us all happy, and that if every man, woman
and child could vote-including untaxable
idiots and Indians-misery and Inequality
would disappear from the world. Now a
woman. her tongue armed with Greek and
her hand with the rapier-Minerva in the
panoply of Mars in short-will take what she
wants-wil1 she not? How will the slender
chested young shopkeepers and light fellows |
IN lawn-tenais suits stand against her? With |
one, two, three and 1unge she will simply |
take the ballot and that will be the end of it. |
From what we hear this movement has |
been little misapprehended. It is supposed |
by sons to be flank movement of the wo-
man suffragists. It is nothing of the sort
Their methods are different. They proceed |
almost always by resolutions and by lobby
ing. The Fencers never resolve and hold no |
conventions. Their plan is-and it is after |
all the old one with women-simply to make |
themselves irresistible. In their method |
they follow the example of hosts of women |
in this generation. While the suffragists are |
begging the men to give them the ballot, de- |
claring that it is a necessary means to wo- |
mans doing anything noteworthy in the /
world, other women have gone forward and |
taken anything they had the capacity to |
take. If woman wanted to be doctor /
she made herself one, and this world won
ders how it used to get on without female |
physicians: if she desired to write book
she wrote it, and the world now spends a |
good portion of its time in reading what are |
loosely called feminine novels; if she chose
to be an astronomer she became one and
made men see stars they never saw before; if
she had fancy for law she read law and
forced the court which had laid aside gowns |
itself to recognize Portia in petticoats
would she draw the curtains and lecture she |
had crowded houses; would she preach she |
went into the pulpit and found congregations
willing to be led and not driven into good
ness; would she have the highest education
she studied with no objection from ANYBODY
but the old-fogy family physician), and eth
er made conspicuous the learning of the age
in an Institution of her own or in an can
mex" carried off the honors in mathematics
and classics from her male competitors; was
her turn philanthropic she took charge of
great charitable institutions or the leader
ship in city missions, saved children, rescued
women, ted the hungry, clothed the naked
and sent the idle to the right about face
what is there that she cannot do and has not
done! Gould a man make shirt for six /
centss What limit is there to her ambition
Dr. performance She drives stage, plays
he violin, sews, sings, dances, acts, paints
both in oil and water colors), teaches, is a
clerk, typewriter, type-setter, an editor, | .
/ marvellous producer of short stories (said |
'y critics to be the most difficult art in the 6
Vorld), telegrapher, and as yeller through
he telephone probably will never have an 4
qual. Go where you will there is woman,
ovely or plain, ready to cure, to chide, to |
;uide, to aid, to instruct, to amuse, to rule,
o lead and point the way for halting man.
And she has done and become all this while
few of her sex have been passing resolu-
ions about her inability without the ballot.
'erhaps it is a perception of this fact that
las lately modified these resolutions; it is I
ot so much now for the sake of women as =
or the sake of men that women need the
allot. Men have made bad mess of gov
rning the world; they have filed it with
rinking saloons and standing armies.